The matter came to notice of Krishnan when Tantry and his gang suddenly stopped showing up at work and all of them resigned without the necessary formalities.

Smelling a rat, the management asked an internal auditor to check the accounts. The owners of the firm grew more suspicious when the auditor Sripathy Bhatt also stopped coming to office.

Clueless, the firm then appointed a new auditor to check the accounts. Following a detailed scrutiny of the accounts, auditor PL Narendra found that six employees cleaned out Rs 2, 96,02,484 belonging to customers of the gold scheme.

According to the police, the accused have not only collected cheques worth Rs 27 lakh from the customers and encashed them, but also siphoned off 10 kg of gold bars worth Rs 2.03 crore.

A detailed analysis of the documents established that Tantry and his associates have forged and destroyed scheme related documents.

They even altered the accounting software with the help of a software source code that they were aware of.

The firm tried to contact the accused seeking explanation, but in vain. "This has not only caused huge loss but also dented the image of our firm," said an official of the firm.